Missing Scenes
by Rhed
Summary: Bits in-between and within episodes. Just random exploration I suppose : Kataang, Maiko, etc. Probably mostly Kataang.


_Hey all. I decided to start a place for oneshots that are not connected to the cut script from my comic (which I would link but keeps eating the link...odd..__) I suppose these are all drabbles. Anyway, enjoy? This first one is from Nightmares and Daydreams._

Staying awake had seemed like the best option. He was still pretty sure of his decision, but Aang was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

Sitting was out of the question. He'd tried that, but before long he noticed that his eyes had sagged nearly shut and the rocks in front of him were in fact just rocks. Only moments prior he would have sworn they were sleeping badgermoles. Aang had spent several minutes trying to figure out why a badgermole had come up to sleep on the surface, and whether or not he should wake one up and point it towards the cliff face at the other end of the clearing.

The sound of Aang's palm as it smashed into his forehead was louder than he'd intended, earning him an angry grunt from Sokka's direction. It was then that the Avatar decided to remove himself from the company of his friends to stalk the cliff's edge. His movements were all tendon and joints, muscles sluggishly kicking in to twitch a leg into place at the last second. As the sky lightened ever so slightly in anticipation of the sun, the Avatar sighed.

"_This is hopeless"_ he thought. Here he was, the world's last hope; a boy approaching thirteen running on less hours of sleep over the last three days than he had fingers on one hand. The Avatar, sure, but he was still one person. One _woefully unprepared_ person against a firelord with several generations of corruption and war in his blood, never mind the hordes of firebenders and mechanical horrors Aang was sure he would have to go through first. There was the invasion plan...but he still didn't like it. He'd meant what he had said to Katara weeks earlier. Aang fully accepted all fault for what happened at Ba Sing Se, had heaved it onto his shoulders along with everything else he blamed himself for. It was a heavy load, and it seemed to only grow heavier.

Aang's shoulders drooped and he sighed, realizing he'd stopped walking some time ago. A faint oval of light began to distinguish the sea from the sky. To his sleeping comrades it would be barely visible, but to Aang it felt like everything that could go wrong in the next three days was massing at the horizon line. He stood and faced it, staring it down. His face showed more fear than anger. _"Why am I doing this? Why me?"_ he asked himself, not sure if he was speaking or thinking. It wasn't a question he was proud of, but it wasn't the first time he'd asked it either. The lack of sleep and the remaining darkness gave his inner thoughts a dry edge, made things seem more like they were events and questions in someone else's life.

"_Because I'm the Avatar. Because I failed at Ba Sing Se. Because I ran away once, and look where that got me. Look where that got the world."_ Aang blinked. Where had it gotten him anyway? Before he ran away, he hadn't been really happy. He wasn't truly happy now either, but..the past months had held an equal amount of joy and suffering. Truth be told, it wasn't all bad. Travel was in his blood, and with the others at his side he was able to experience things through their eyes. Through Katara's eyes. He hadn't the words to express what he felt, really felt about her. Even in daydreams, perched on Appa's head while the long hours of flight passed and the others slept or mended their equipment, Aang could never quite find the words to tell her. He tried. In his head, he tried.

"_It's like all the veins in my body twitch and jump three feet outside of me, and.."_

No.

"_Every time you smile at me I feel like someone grabs my heart and throws it at the ground, while the earth quakes, but then instead of hitting the ground my heart stops short and slingshots back up to hit me in the jaw, and.."_

No.

"_It's like being hit by lighting, but in a good way! I mean, it's scary but.."_

Aang groaned and smacked his forehead, his hand sliding down his face roughly. The last thing Katara wanted to hear about aside from _"Hey, turns out the comet's actually coming tomorrow! Oops!_" was probably anything involving Aang and lightning.

...And in a weird way, that made him smile. He felt as guilty for the pain he caused her then as he felt for losing Ba Sing Se. He'd gathered rumors and intonations, whispers and glances, pieced together the story that really happened while he was out. Katara had barely left his side, barely ate, worked to bind his soul to his flesh until she succumbed to exhaustion or was collected by her brother and father. He felt guilty, but it made him wonder. Katara was the kind of person who would throw herself in front of a charging sabertooth mooselion for someone in need, the kind of person who would go to the ends of the earth and back for a friend. It shouldn't be a surprise that she'd act so selflessly for a hurt friend. But..still.

She almost always asked him first for his opinion on things. Not just important, life threatening things either; little things. She believed in him even when he didn't believe in anything. She was like a candle that wouldn't go out, always there to relight his spirit when it guttered and shrunk.

Aang smiled for the first time that night. Maybe for the first time since they had started waiting for the invasion. He was remembering their first days under cover, how they stole clothes and walked around the nearby town, and finally, the dance. He swore he saw something in her, then. If he died the day after tomorrow, the night of the dance might get chalked up as the best night of his life. He only wished it might have lasted longer. He hoped he got another chance to dance with her.

Maybe after the war, if they lived.

_If_. The uncertainty made him set his jaw and clench his teeth. They _had_ to live. They had to. She had to. The Avatar might be the world's last hope, but Aang would be lost without her. The world he had known was long gone. It was her world he was trying to save, so she could share it with him. He had to defeat the firelord, for the little towns and the people who lived in them, for the spiderflies and the platypus bears, for the spirits..for her.

He was doing it for her.

Aang felt his heart jerk in his chest. Maybe...maybe he should tell her that.


End file.
